Do we need footage of children dying?

RearNaked

I came in from a night out a while ago with a friend and I noticed that there was some sort of charity even for children in third world countries on tv. My friend was talking a lot as I was trying to watch it, and I eventually snapped at him because of this. However, after they showed footage of a very young African boy dying in a hospital bed and his dad screaming, I quickly switched the television off.

I complained about the footage to some people double my age, and they said "You can't really criticize it when they are trying to raise money for charity." Another added, "And some people need to see what the world is really like."

It frustrates me when people say stuff like this. Why don't we raise money for children who are victims of sexual abuse? "And here is footage of a 5 year old boy being molested by a paedophile posing as Father Christmas". Or how about this? "Women are raped every day. Here is a video, just incase you don't believe me".

Adept

Interesting point. It reminds me of when I watched a documentary called "This film is not yet rated" about the MPAA and their inconsistent standards for rating movies. Extreme violence and brutality is "R" worthy but a women's prolonged orgasm is "NC-17". Standards of decency are f*cked up for sure. I think that is my response.

Tyler

I agree with you on the account of private organizations using the footage for business reasons. However, if objective media chooses to use it to convey a point about the brutality of a current event, I feel it has merit for being showed. In the end, it's all about the intent behind the footage. As with any form of media.